ArticleThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2024
National school food standards in England: a cross-sectional study to explore compliance in secondary schools and impact on pupil nutritional intake.
Article in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The distribution of school-aged adolescents' free sugar intake across the day: A cross-sectional study.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- A comparative analysis of primary school meal nutrition across the low- and high-poverty boroughs of Inner London.BMC nutrition · 2026Article
- Tackling the social determinants of childhood obesity in the United States: policy brief and lessons for developed and emerging economies.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- An evaluation of the effects of universal free school meals on secondary school-aged pupils' dietary intakes in England: a natural experiment.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Economic evaluation of the national school food standards across secondary schools in the Midlands, UK (the FUEL study): methodological challenges of undertaking health economics research within non-health settings.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Observational
- Evaluation of school food policies for secondary schools in Europe: Results for health, acceptance, and affordability from a scoping review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Article
- Sustainability of Diets Consumed by UK Adolescents and Associations Between Diet Sustainability and Meeting Nutritional Requirements.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Exploring the feasibility of using school food purchase data as a method to assess dietary intakes in secondary school aged pupils.Public health nutrition · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMany countries have introduced school food standards to improve the dietary intakes of school-aged children. England has school food standards (SFS) legislation in place but little is known about how well secondary schools comply with this. We aimed to assess compliance with the SFS legislation in English secondary schools and explore the impact of the SFS on pupils' nutritional intake.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study with English secondary schools from 2019 to 2022. We compared SFS compliance and pupil nutritional intake in schools mandated or not mandated to comply with the SFS legislation, and explored the association between school compliance and pupil nutritional intake. We assessed the percentage of SFS (%SFS) complied with by reviewing school food menus and observing food served in school canteens. We assessed pupil nutritional intake using a 24-hour dietary recall measure (Intake24) and estimated intakes of free sugar (primary outcome) and other nutrients/foods. We used adjusted multilevel models to compare pupil intakes in the SFS-mandated and SFS-non-mandated schools, and to explore the association between school SFS compliance and pupil intakes.
results36 schools (23 not mandated and 13 mandated to comply with the SFS) and 2,273 pupils participated. The median %SFS complied with was 63.9% (interquartile range 60.0-70.0%). This was similar for SFS-non-mandated (64.5%) and SFS-mandated schools (63.3%). Compliance was highest for standards applying to lunchtime (median = 81.3%) and lowest for those applying across the whole school day (median = 41.7%). It was also lower for standards restricting high fat, sugar and energy-dense items (median = 26.1%) than for standards aiming to increase dietary variety (median = 92.3%). Pupils from SFS-mandated schools had a lower mean lunchtime intake of free sugar (g) (adjusted mean difference: -2.78g; 95% CI: -4.66g to -0.90g). There were few significant associations between %SFS complied with and pupil nutritional intake.
conclusionsEnglish secondary schools do not fully comply with SFS legislation regardless of whether they are mandated to comply. Schools and caterers may require monitoring and support to fully comply. There is little evidence that SFS compliance is associated with better pupil nutritional intake. Food environments outside of school also need to be considered. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN68757496 (17-10-2019).
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